The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  “There’s no key, just a trick padlock, it’s a joke around here—” She stopped cold. On the bottom step was a single candle burning in a holder. She scrambled the rest of the way down and slapped the flame out. The gas smell was worse; she felt a headache coming on.

  Quentin surged past her. Some of the cage wire had been cut through. He thrust his hand into the hole and shut off the valves on the hissing tanks.

  “Out!” he ordered, and she did not argue with him.

  * * *

  Three hours before curtain Cassie called a meeting. She was mad as hell, but not showing it. In fact, she looked cheerful and rested. That was enough to alert her people that something was up.

  “We’re going to have the best show we’ve ever put on,” she said as an opening.

  Nell, who knew her very well, showed alarm.

  “We can also relax, our troubles are over. The poltergeist blew it. I know who’s been trying to kill this production.”

  “Who?” demanded Keating, holding tight to Isabel’s hand.

  Cassie grinned. “Someone who didn’t know the ins and outs of this old place. One of the jokes here is the huge padlock on the butane cage.” She quickly explained about what she and Quentin had discovered the night before. “This theater was supposed to blow up, burn down, or at least be so damaged as to make the show impossible. The culprit, not knowing that a trick catch on the padlock would open it, didn’t have time to cut through the hasp, and smashing it might have been too noisy, so he cut the cage wires instead—and that was the giveaway.”

  “How so?” asked Isabel.

  “A woman or a small man could have got a hand through the cage wires and wouldn’t have needed to cut the wires to turn the tank valves on. Anyone inside the Sullivan company would have known to just pop the trick padlock. Only an outsider, a man unable to get his big hand through, would have thought it necessary to cut the wire to get to the tanks.”

  People exchanged looks and Nell’s eyes narrowed. She would be the one to point out the flaw in Cassie’s logic—that a member of the company would be smart enough to cut the wires as a cover.

  Cassie pressed forward before Nell could speak and spoil the build. “So why the hell were you trying to kill this production—Mr. Keating?”

  Keating, no actor, went a sickly gray. “That’s slander!” he snarled. He stood, squaring his shoulders, recovering his cool. “My lawyers will strip you to the bone.”

  Isabel shot to her feet. “James?”

  “Bel,” he said patiently, “this is what happens when you deal with amateurs.”

  She looked at Cassie.

  Who looked right back and asked, “Did he happen to go missing between eleven and twelve last night? As in turn off his cell phone?”

  Everyone knew he never did that. The annoying thing was always going off during rehearsals, and even Isabel couldn’t get him to silence it.

  She went pale as she rounded on him. “Where were you?”

  “I had a business call and took it in the hotel lobby. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “That would be a first. You’re always on that thing. You don’t care who’s around.”

  “Oh, Bel, really. We’ve had talks about your ego before—”

  “My ego?”

  “Sweetie-pie, you need a reality check. This project of yours is too expensive, even as a tax write-off.”

  “You self-absorbed, penny-pinching bastard! It’s my damned money!”

  “And the critics are eating you alive even before opening night. Face it, you’re a star, not an actress!”

  Cassie calmly fitted her baseball bat into Isabel’s hand. “Here, honey, have a party.”

  * * *

  The Graham-Keating engagement, along with James Keating’s right arm, which he’d raised to ward off the blow, was officially broken, so screamed a tabloid headline a few days later.

  Despite Keating’s threats of legal reprisal for slander and assault, everyone in the company stuck to the story that he’d fallen off the stage into the old orchestra pit. The police investigation stalled, while the show went on.

  Isabel Graham, drawing from that afternoon’s inspiration, gave a riveting performance as one of the most vicious, bloody-minded Lady Macbeths the critics had ever had the pleasure to cower from; they also enthused about newcomer Quentin Douglas, sparking talk of a Broadway revival of the play.

  “Two weeks and he’s history,” chided Nell to Cassie at the opening night celebration party. “Yeah, sure. You change your mind about dating actors yet?”

  “Maybe,” Cassie admitted, returning Quentin’s look from across the stage. He started toward her, eyes twinkling again. “He didn’t seem to care that I clobbered him, so there’s hope. . . .”

  “Then you go, girl!” Nell pushed her forward. “And give him one for me!”

  * * * * * * *

  __________

  GRAVE–ROBBED

  Author’s Note: I always wanted to do a story where vampire Jack Fleming crashes a séance and the invitation to trib to MANY BLOODY RETURNS, edited by Toni L.P. Kelner and Charlaine Harris was NOT to be missed. But this vampires and birthdays-themed story did not come easy. Originally Jack’s partner Escott was going to be in on the action, but after 17 hours of tearing my hair, trying to write him in, I gave up and reluctantly kicked poor Charles to the curb. After that the story just about wrote itself. A writer’s sub-conscious always knows best!

  Chicago, February 1937

  When the girl draped in black stepped into the office to ask if I could help her with a séance, Hal Kemp’s version of “Gloomy Sunday” began to murmur sadly from the office radio.

  Coincidences annoy me. A mournful song for a dead sweetheart put together with a ceremony that’s supposed to help the living speak with the dead made me uneasy—and I was annoyed it made me uneasy.

  I should know better, being dead myself.

  “You sure you’re in the right place?” I asked, taking in her outfit. Black overcoat, pocketbook, gloves, heels, and stockings—she was a walking funeral. Along with the mourning weeds, she wore a brimmed hat with a chin-brushing veil even I couldn’t see past.

  “The Escott Agency—that’s what’s on the door,” she said, sitting on the client chair in front of the desk without an invitation. “You’re Mr. Escott?”

  “I’m Mr. Fleming. I fill in for Mr. Escott when he’s elsewhere.” He was off visiting his girlfriend. I’d come to his office to work on the books since I was better at accounting. Littering the desk were stacks of paper scraps covered with dates and numbers—his usual method of recording business expenses on the fly. After a couple hours of dealing with the monotony, I was ready for a break.

  “It was Mr. Escott who was recommended to me.” Her tone indicated she wanted the boss, not the part-time hired help.

  “By who?”

  “A friend.”

  I waited, but she left it at that. Nothing unusual in it, much of Escott’s business as a private agent came by word of mouth. Call him a private-eye and you’d get a pained look and perhaps an acerbic declaration that he did not undertake divorce cases. His specialty was carrying out unpleasant errands for the unable or unwilling, not peeking through keyholes. Did a séance qualify? He was interested in that kind of thing, but mostly from a skeptic’s point of view. I had to say mostly since he couldn’t be a complete skeptic what with his partner—me—being a vampire.

  And nice to meet you, too.

  Hal Kemp played on in the little office until the girl stood, went to the radio, and shut it off.

  “I hate that song,” she stated, turning around, the veil swirling lightly. Faceless women irritate me, but she had good legs.

  “Me, too. You got any particular reason?”

  “My sister plays it all the time. It gets on my nerves.”

  “Does it have to do with this séance?”

  “Can’t you call Mr. Escott?”

  “I could, but you didn’t make an appointmen
t for this late or he’d be here.”

  “My appointment is for tomorrow, but something’s happened since I made it, and I need to speak with him tonight. I came by just in case he worked late. The light was on and a car was out front. . .”

  I checked his book. In his precise hand he’d written 10am, Abigail Saeger. “Spell that name again?”

  She did so, correct for both.

  “What’s the big emergency?” I asked. “If this is something I can’t handle I’ll let him know, but otherwise you’ll find I’m ready, able, and willing.”

  “I don’t mean to offend, but you look rather young for such work. Over the phone I thought Mr. Escott to be. . .more mature.”

  Escott and I were the same age but I did look younger by over a decade. On the other hand if she thought a man in his mid-thirties was old, then she’d be something of a kid herself. Her light voice told me as much, though you couldn’t tell by her manner and speech, which bore a finishing school’s not so subtle polish.

  “Miss Saeger, would you mind raising your blinds? I like to see who’s hiring before I take a job.”

  She went still a moment, then lifted her veil. As I thought, a fresh-faced kid who should be home studying, but her eyes were red-rimmed, her expression serious.

  “That’s better. What can I do for you?”

  “My older sister, Flora, is holding a séance tonight. She’s crazy to talk with her dead husband, and there’s a medium taking advantage of her. He wants her money, and more.”

  “A fake medium?”

  “Is there any other kind?”

  I smiled, liking her. “Give me the whole story, same as you’d have told to Mr. Escott.”

  “You’ll help me?”

  “I need to know more first.” I said it in a tone to indicate I was interested.

  She plunged in, talking fast, but I had good shorthand and scribbled notes.

  Miss Saeger and her older sister Flora were alone, their parents long dead. But Flora had money in trust and married into more money after getting hitched to James Weisinger Jr., who inherited a tidy fortune some years ago. The Depression had little effect on them. Flora became a widow last August when her still-young husband died in a sailing accident on Lake Michigan.

  I’d been killed on that lake. “Sure it was an accident?”

  “A wind shift caused the boom to swing around. It caught him on the side of the head and over he went. I still have nightmares about the awful thud when it hit him and the splash, but it’s worse for Flora—she was at the wheel at the time. She blames herself. No one else does. There were half a dozen people aboard who knew sailing. That kind of thing can happen out of the blue. You can’t anticipate it.”

  I vaguely remembered reading about it in the paper. Nothing like some rich guy getting killed while doing rich-guy stuff to generate copy.

  “Poor James never knew what hit him, it was just that fast. Flora was in hysterics and had to be drugged for a week. Then she kept to her bed nearly a month, then she read some stupid article in a magazine about using Ouija boards to talk to spirits and got it into her head that she had to contact James, to apologize to him.”

  “That opened the door to the medium?”

  “James is dead, and if he did things right he’s in heaven and should stay there—in peace.” Miss Saeger growled in disgust. “I’ve gotten Flora’s pastor to talk to her, but she won’t listen to him. I’ve talked to her until we both end up screaming and crying, and she won’t see sense. I’m just her little sister and don’t know anything, you see.”

  “What’s so objectionable?”

  “Her obsession. It’s not healthy. I thought after all this time she’d lose interest, but she’s gotten worse. Every week she has a gaggle of those creeps from the Society over, they set up the board, light candles, and ask questions while looking at James’ picture. It’s pointless and sad and unnatural and-and—just plain disrespectful.”

  I was really liking her now. “Society?”

  “The Psychical Society of Chicago.”

  Though briefly tempted to ask her to say it three times fast, I kept my yap shut. The group investigated haunted houses and held sittings—their word for séances—writing their experiences up for their archives. Escott was a member. For a buck a year to cover mailing costs he’d get a pamphlet every month and read the more oddball pieces out to me.

  “The odious thing is,” said Miss Saeger, “they’re absolutely sincere. When one has that kind of belief going, then of course it’s going to produce results.”

  “What kind of results?”

  “They’ve spelled out the names of all the people who ever died in the house, which is stupid because the house isn’t that old. The man who supervises these sittings says that’s because the house was built over the site of another, so the dead people are connected to it, you see. There’s no way to prove or disprove any of it. He’s got an answer for everything and always sounds perfectly reasonable.”

  “Is he the medium?”

  “No, but he brought him in. Alistair Bradford.” She put plenty of venom in that name. “He looks like something out of a movie.”

  “What? Wears a turban like Chandu the Magician?”

  Her big dark eyes flashed, then she choked, stifling a sudden laugh. She got things under control after a moment. “Thank you. It’s good to talk with someone who sees things the way I do.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “No turban, but he has piercing eyes, and when he walks into a room everyone turns around. He’s handsome. . .for an old guy.”

  “How old?”

  “At least forty.”

  “That’s ancient.”

  “Please don’t make fun of me. I get that all the time from him, from all of them.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Saeger. Are you the only one left in the house with any common sense?”

  “Yes.” She breathed that out, and it almost turned into a sob, but she headed it off. The poor kid looked to be only barely keeping control of a truckload of high emotion. I heard her heart pounding fast, then gradually slow. “Even some of the servants are under his spell. I have friends, but I can’t talk to them about this. It’s just too embarrassing.”

  “You’ve been by yourself on this since August?”

  She nodded. “Except for our pastor, but he can’t be there every day. He tells me to keep praying for Flora, and I do, and still this goes on and just gets worse. I miss James, too. He was a nice man, a good man. He deserves better than this—this—”

  “What broke the camel’s back to bring you here?”

  “Before Alistair Bradford came all they did was play with that stupid Ouija board. I’d burn it but they’d just buy another from the five and dime toy aisle. After he was introduced they began holding séances. I don’t like any of that stuff and don’t believe in it, but he made it scary. It’s as though he gets taller and broader and his voice changes. With the room almost totally dark it’s easy to believe his nonsense.”

  “They let you sit in?”

  “Just the once—on sufferance so long as I kept quiet. When I turned the lights on in the middle of things Flora banished me. She said my negative thoughts were preventing the spirits from coming through, and that I was endangering Bradford’s life. You’re not supposed to startle a medium out of a trance or it could kill him. I wouldn’t mind seeing that, but he was faking. While they were all yelling I had my eye on him, and the look he gave me was pure spite. . .and he was smiling. He wanted to scare me and it worked. I’ve kept my door locked ever since and haven’t slept much.”

  “I don’t blame you. No one believes you?”

  “Of course not. I’m not in their little club and I’m just a kid. What do I know?”

  “Kids have instinct, a good thing to follow. Is he living in the house?”

  “He mentioned it, but Flora—for once—didn’t think that was proper.”

  “Is he romancing her?”

  Miss Saeger’s eyes w
ent hard. “Slowly. He’s too smart to rush things, but I see the way he struts around, looking at everything. If he lays a finger on Flora I’ll—”

  I raised one hand. “I get it. You want Flora protected and him discredited.”

  “Or his legs broken and his big smirking face smashed in.”

  That was something I could have arranged. I know those kind of people. “It’s better if Flora gets rid of him by her own choice.”

  “I don’t see how, I think it’s too late. I called here on Saturday to make the appointment, but—” She went red in the face. “I could just kill him!”

  “What’d he do?”

  “The last seance—they have one every Sunday and that’s just wrong having it on a Sunday—something horrible happened. They all gathered in the larger parlor at the table as usual, lighted candles, and put out the lights. Soon as it went dark I slipped in while they were getting settled. There’s an old Chinese screen in one corner, and I hide behind it during their séances. Negative feelings, my foot, no one’s noticed me yet, not even Bradford, so I saw the whole thing.”

  “Which was?”

  “He put himself in a trance right on time. It usually takes five minutes, and by then everyone’s expecting something to happen, you can feel it. He starts out with a low groan and breathing loudly, and in the dark it’s spooky, and that’s when his spirit guide takes over. His voice gets deeper and he puts on a French accent. Calls himself Frere Leon. He’s supposed to have been a monk who traveled with Joan of Arc.”

  “Who speaks English?”

  “Of course. No one’s ever thought of talking to him in French. I doubt Bradford knows much more than mon Dieu and sang sacre.”

  She’d attended a good finishing school, speaking with the right kind of pronunciation. I’d heard it when I’d been a doughboy in France during the last year of the war, and had picked up enough to get by. Much of that was too rough for Miss Saeger’s tender ears, though.